大衛·霍克尼

Annely Juda Fine Art, London

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2012

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate although the tonality of the light green paint is more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals a minute loss to the overturn edge at the centre of the lower left quadrant. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Felled Totem, September 8th 2009 is a vibrant work of singular intensity. Pastoral and poignant in equal measure, it is completed with bold brief strokes of saturated colour, and filled with art historical references. As much as any other painting from the Winter Timber and Totems series, this work recalls David Hockney’s favourite Chinese proverb: “to make a successful painting three things are necessary, the eye, the hand, and the heart. Two won’t do” (David Hockney quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Royal Academy of Arts, (and travelling), David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture, 2012-13, p. 25).

Hockney’s Yorkshire landscapes are significant within his oeuvre not just for their vitality and ingenuity, but also for their poignancy. In the late 1990s, Hockney’s mother and one of his closest childhood friends, Jonathan Silver, both died. Both had remained steadfast in Yorkshire while he travelled the world for thirty years, and both had always implored him to paint the county of his childhood. After their death, the artist immersed himself in the hilly landscape with an almost pious sense of dedication. The resultant images are devotional; their creation was a way for Hockney to feel closer to his mother, to his friend, and to his past.

In this context, the title and subject matter of Felled Totems, September 8th 2009 take on the melancholic significance of mourning. By comparing these chopped down English trees to totem poles – those columns that existed at the heart of Native American society – Hockney amplifies his loss and shows that he was not only grieving those who had been dearest to him, but also that sense of belonging and personal community that he had been afforded by their presence. It is also significant that Hockney presents chopped down trees of varying ages: the bark morphs from vivacious verdant green to dark dead brown, while the cores change from bright peachy flesh to dusty ochre. This process of transformation and decay is an unmistakable reminder of the immutable passage of time and of mortality’s inevitability.

However, to interpret this work as merely a morose meditation on death would be to ignore Hockney’s diligent deference to art historical precedent. The thick veins of blood red that wind up the barrels of the foreground logs are redolent of Fauvists like André Derain and Henri Matisse. While the dappled autumnal palette evokes Gustav Klimt's Beech Forests of 1901-04. Those light striations at the base of the tree stump, which perfectly recall the stringy moss that sprouts between roots, evoke the gestural style of late Van Gogh, who had also devoted himself to landscape in the latter stage of his career. Meanwhile, in the confident daubs of varying greens, aptly implying the rustling depth of a leafy wood, we are compelled to think of pointillism – of artists like Georges Seurat who propagated anti-illustrative mark-making as a means by which one could imbue paintings with unending dynamism and flickering visual interest.

By choosing to focus his unstinting artistic attention on those forms of his immediate landscape, Hockney was inheriting and advancing a grand tradition of British culture. Hockney set up his easel in the forests and undergrowth of the Yorkshire Wolds just as John Constable based himself amongst the fields and muddy tracks of his native Suffolk; he glorified the landscape to which he belonged just as Frank Auerbach has immortalised certain pockets of North London. We might even think of William Wordsworth, who also returned to the North of England, to the Lake District, to muse on the memories of his childhood and pen some of the most celebrated poetry of the Romantic era.